


225 days under grass

by pollyrepeat



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Horror, Zombies, this is not a particularly happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollyrepeat/pseuds/pollyrepeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Loki, Coulson wears his suits like armour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	225 days under grass

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think this has a happy ending. Written in about two hours for Halloween, so, you know. Quick and dirty.
> 
> Title from the poem "For Jane", by Charles Bukowski.

“Hawkeye.”

“In position, sir,” Clint says.

“Copy,” Coulson says, little more than an exhalation of breath into the radio. It sounds almost intimate. It feels as though he’s whispering in Clint’s ear. “Red Team?”

“In position.”

“At my signal,” Coulson says.

//

Clint remembers warm summer days. He remembers overheated bunkers, and besieged greenhouses, and days in the desert. He remembers Coulson taking off his suit jacket and folding it over with careful, crisp movements. He remembers rolled-up shirt-sleeves: wrists, forearms, a glimpse of an elbow.

After Loki, Coulson wears his suits like armour. There is no variation. His cuffs are always a perfect half-inch past his suit jacket sleeves. On a hot, humid New York afternoon, he stands cool and collected on the sidewalk outside Stark Tower, waiting.

“Not too warm, sir?” Clint says, half-hoping.

Coulson casts him a quick glance. His mouth quirks. “No,” he says, and then, stunningly, smiles wide at Clint for the first time since Loki. His mouth parts. Clint can see his teeth.

These days, standing next to Coulson, Clint knows that if he were to close his eyes and breathe in deep, it would smell like he’s standing in the middle of a long-ago field, digging his toes in damp earth while his father moves through the dark toward him.

Clint keeps his eyes open. He smiles back.

//

Red Team moves in according to plan, holding formation as Clint watches through the scope, gravel from the roof grinding into his legs and elbows and stomach. One by one, the yard lights surrounding the warehouse blink out, Red Team moving from one shadow to the next.

“Nine heat signatures,” Coulson says. Red Leader clicks her mic in acknowledgment. From his position, Clint can just barely make out the creak of the door as someone eases it open, then the louder pop as the flash-bang goes off inside. He squeezes his eyes shut to preserve his night vision; the light from the other side of the broken-paned windows flaring white against his eyelids, and he blinks them open just as the staccato sound of gunfire begins.

Movement catches his attention; something just barely glimpsed in his peripheral. “Possible incoming, 8 o’clock,” he says, quietly, and reaches for an arrow. The movement resolves itself into -- something. Something that’s strolling closer, casually, a blotch of slightly darker dark advancing on the warehouse.

It moves past the pallet of crates. Past the rusted-out pick-up. Clint has 20/8 vision but on this cloudy, starless night, the shape still won’t come into focus. He thinks it’s humanoid. Probably. He draws his bow and aims for centre mass.

“Definite incoming,” he says. “I have the shot.”

//

Coulson recovers, slowly, and then at great bounding speeds that see him checking out of Medical a full two months before anyone expected. He’s not back at 100% -- will probably never be back at 100% -- but he’s well enough to handle comms and provide backup, and so he does. He shows up occasionally at team movie nights and sits slightly apart from everyone else, but Clint thinks the point is that he shows up at all.

SHIELD is still understaffed from the Loki incident, and its enemies, sensing weakness and granted the edge of Clint’s intel, are moving swiftly against them. Coulson’s still Fury’s right-hand man; still his one good eye, and so, Clint supposes, musing aloud to Natasha, it’s not altogether surprising that Fury continues to send Coulson out into the field, even if it’s just to sit in the truck.

“He’s not just sitting in the truck,” Natasha says.

He’s not. Over the last few months, Coulson’s roles have been shifting away from liaising and back toward covert ops. If you read the mission reports (and Clint does), it’s all there, between the lines: Coulson gets out of the truck. He enters active scenes. He’s doing just fine.

"I would do the same,” Clint says. “I _have_ done the same.”

“We do what we can, while we can,” Natasha says. “Yes.”

//

The thing vanishes around the edge of the warehouse. There’s no answer on comms. It occurs to Clint, after a moment, that their mobile HQ is parked at a distance away that suddenly feels stunningly, sickeningly close to danger.

“Coulson,” Clint says. It’s a warm night, but that’s not the reason Clint’s sweating right now. “Talk to me.”

From inside the warehouse, Red Leader says, “Subjects secured; is there a --”

Clint waits a moment, eyes and ears and arms straining, but there’s nothing else. No more movement. No more noise.

//

In a tiny town in Greece, Coulson pulls himself carefully back into the open safe-house window. There’s blood spatter on his shoes; a few blotches of it drying on his face. Clint wants to reach out and help him, wants to go back to the way things were, but Coulson’s been drawing further and further away. It’s all been downhill after that one, last smile; no more Sunday morning pancakes or open-door policies. Coulson keeps his office door locked, now. You have to knock to get in.

Clint’s trying to respect this. He’s not sure he trusts himself, either.

“Any problems,” Clint asks, brisk. Coulson’s looking at him strangely, like there’s something he wants to say -- he opens his mouth, then closes it again. Shakes his head.

“A few unintended casualties,” he says, at last. “Nothing serious.”

//

“Shit,” Clint hisses. “Shit, _shit_ \--” He’s moving, already, stretching his arms and legs and scrambling quietly for the fire escape. By the time he hits the ground, he can see the flicker of flames inside the warehouse; the acrid smell of smoke drifts straight towards him.

“Red Team, do you --” Clint starts, and then swings his bow up, forcing himself into stillness.

There it is: the shape again, the thing, jerking around the corner; one hand trailing against the warehouse wall as though to hold itself steady. It steps into the warm pool of light cast by the growing blaze, and in Clint’s ear and right in front of him, Coulson says, “Talk to me, Barton.”

There’s blood spatter on his shoes; blotches of it drying next to his mouth. He holds his hands out low, palms up. They’re smeared and wet. The shadows cling to them. “Talk to me Barton,” he says, again, and shows his teeth in something that’s not quite a smile.

//

After everything that Coulson’s been through, it’s not surprising that he’s always a little pale, now. A little slower. A little withdrawn. It’s not surprising that he shuffles, a bit, when he walks.

//

Clint says, “I have the shot.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted to write Coulson coming back _wrong_.


End file.
